As more and more businesses go digital, cloud-based software providers stand to reap the benefits. A cloud refers to networks comprised of hyper-scale data centers built using open-source software and commodity hardware. With the demand for cloud-based solutions only growing, enterprises are turning to software companies to provide the digital infrastructure they need to keep pace with a world that’s increasingly online. But how are investors supposed to know which stocks are poised to soar beyond the clouds? One way to find these stocks is by using the TipRanks Stock Screener. The Stock Screener lets you sort stocks by sector and analyst consensus to pinpoint the most compelling investments. Using this tool, we were able to find 3 cloud-based software stocks that have garnered substantial support from Wall Street with a “Strong Buy” analyst consensus. This is based on the last three months’ worth of ratings from all other analysts. Let’s dive in. Salesforce.com, Inc. (CRM) As the pioneer behind customer relationship management (CRM) software, Salesforce has cemented its status as one of the leading players in the space. Based on its solid performance in its most recent quarter, investors are liking what they’re seeing. On August 22, the company posted a second quarter earnings and revenue beat driven by the strength of its Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Sales cloud, the company’s largest product, generated $1.13 billion in revenue while the Service Cloud reached $1.09 billion, up 13% and 22%, respectively, from the year-ago quarter.That being said, CRM has been branching out as part of a larger effort to diversify its product offerings. Back in 2018, CRM acquired Mulesoft’s software business for $6.5 billion. The deal allowed CRM to offer solutions using data stored in disparate systems, some in the cloud and some in legacy on-premises software. This was followed up by an even larger acquisition of data visualization company Tableau. At $15.3 billion, the purchase was the company’s largest acquisition in its history. While some investors originally expressed concern that CRM was biting off more than it can chew with the acquisition, RBC Capital analyst Alex Zukin believes the current valuation of 5.5 times enterprise value to expected 2021 revenue represents a unique opportunity. “We see little meaningful competition and no evidence of pricing pressure or market saturation at Salesforce,” the five-star analyst explained. As a result, he assumed coverage with a Buy while raising the price target from $181 to $200 on August 23. He believes shares could surge 32% in the next twelve months.Wall Street clearly agrees as CRM has received 26 Buy ratings and no Holds or Sells in the last three months, giving it a ‘Strong Buy’ analyst consensus. Its $188 average price target indicates 24% upside potential. ServiceNow Inc. (NOW)While not as well-known as CRM, ServiceNow has been deemed a must-watch name in the workplace software space. Its cloud-based solutions get rid of paperwork by enabling its customers to digitize manual business processes that have typically needed to be performed on paper. With shares already up 48% year-to-date, it’s easy to see why analysts are excited about this cloud stock.Throughout the company’s history, it has been able to garner a positive reputation among customers based on its easy-to-use design. It doesn’t hurt that the software can be integrated with its customers’ existing software such as Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Microsoft Azure (MSFT), Google Cloud (GOOGL) as well as several others. According to NOW’s July 24 Q2 earnings release, customers are happy. The company boasts an almost 99% renewal rate, with it consistently marketing and cross-selling its other products to existing customers.Not to mention NOW was able to finalize 39 transactions each with more than $1 million in net new annual contract value (ACV) during the quarter. This brings its total customer base with an AVC over $1 million to 776, up 33% year-over-year. While the company has taken some heat over its lofty valuation, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Tom Roderick believes NOW looks poised to grow into its valuation. As a result, he upgraded the rating from a Hold to a Buy and bumped up the price target from $290 to $320 on August 21. The five-star analyst's new price target demonstrates his confidence in NOW’s potential to gain 21% over the next twelve months. All in all, the rest of the Street is bullish on NOW. It boasts a ‘Strong Buy’ analyst consensus and a $317 average price target, suggesting 20% upside potential. Q2 Holdings Inc. (QTWO)Q2 Holdings wants to change the way financial institutions operate by providing cloud-based digital banking solutions. The company is aiming to meet the needs of smaller banks that are seeing a drop in customer engagement at their physical locations. QTWO allows customers to build custom websites or mobile apps through its three platforms, a digital banking platform, lending and leasing and a banking-as-a-service. QTWO’s strategy appears to be working as evidenced by the results from its most recent quarter. On August 7, the company reported that its customer base gained 19% from the year-ago second quarter to reach 13.6 million users across all platforms. As a result, quarterly revenue totaled $77.6 million, up 33% year-over-year.“We closed out the first half of the year on a strong note. Given our sales execution, we plan to continue investing in integration, innovation and delivering successful client outcomes,” said CEO Matt Flake.Adding to the good news, QTWO announced on August 29 that it is partnering with Athena Home Loans to provide digital mortgages. Based on QTWO’s strong second quarter performance, KeyBanc analyst Arvind Ramnani reiterated his Buy rating while raising the price target from $98 to $102 on August 28. The four-star analyst believes that shares could soar 17% in the next twelve months.Wall Street appears to echo the analyst’s sentiment. The stock is a ‘Strong Buy’ among analysts, with it receiving 6 Buy ratings vs 2 Holds in the last three months. Its $94 average price target implies 7% upside potential. Find analysts’ favorite stocks with the Top Analysts’ Stocks tool

ServiceNow Inc. is up 51% this year and the company made Jim Cramer's fantasy portfolio that he announced on his Mad Money program Thursday night. In the daily bar chart of NOW, below, we can see a basing pattern on the left side of the chart from October through January. The daily On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line has declined from the middle of July telling us that sellers have turned to be more aggressive the past two months.

ServiceNow (NOW), the company that makes work, work better for people, today announces the launch of native mobile experiences for everyday work across the enterprise with the general availability of its Now Platform New York release (https://www.servicenow.com/now-platform/latest-release.html). Powered by the Now Platform, the leading platform in managing complex enterprise workflows across functions, departments and systems, ServiceNow’s new Now Mobile app makes diverse everyday work tasks simple and easy. Whether it’s fixing an IT issue, ordering a computer, finding a conference room, getting help from human resources, approving purchase orders, travel requests and legal documents, or finding quick answers to questions, the Now Mobile app makes it easy to take care of business on the go.

The Silicon Valley company, which is leading a digital revolution across businesses that is “hiding all the complexity of work,” as CEO John Donahoe put it in a recent interview, on Wednesday patched a hole in its product line with two new mobile apps.

August was a month marked by market uncertainty with Nasdaq 100 index falling almost 4%. Since its debut as a public company earlier this year, shares of Uber have fallen almost 30%, but recent analyst ratings suggest the decline in price may present a buying opportunity.

Identity access management leader Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) is set to report second quarter numbers after the bell on Wednesday, Aug. 28, and I'm optimistic on OKTA stock ahead of that print.Source: Shutterstock My optimism is rooted in four things. First, Okta's earnings history is stellar. Second, the numbers this quarter look very beatable. Third, peer cloud companies have reported strong numbers over the past month.Fourth, and most importantly, the secular growth narrative underlying OKTA stock is so robust and wide-reaching that, even if the stock sells off in response to Q2 numbers, that sell-off will be temporary. In the big picture, it will be nothing more than an opportunity buy into a long-term winner at a discount.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsAs such, I like OKTA stock ahead of earnings. In all likelihood, the company reports strong numbers, and the stock flies higher. In the event that doesn't happen, I'm perfectly comfortable buying the dip, given the strength of this company's secular growth narrative. Either way, I see Okta stock as one for the long run. Stellar Earnings HistoryLet's have a look at the Okta Inc stock stellar earnings history. Indeed, the company's track record is flawless. * 10 Stocks Under $5 to Buy for Fall Okta's first public earnings report was back in June 2017. It was a double beat report, topping Street estimates on both revenue and earnings. Ever since, Okta has racked up nine consecutive double-beats. Not surprisingly, OKTA stock has performed very well during this stretch. Since that first earnings report, the shares are up more than 430%.Coming into tomorrow's earnings report, history is on the bulls' side ahead of the Q2 print. The Numbers Look BeatableThe second big reason to buy OKTA stock ahead of earnings is that the Street numbers look very beatable.In every quarter since going public, Okta has reported revenue growth of 50% or better. That is nine quarters of 50%-plus revenue growth. The Street is looking for less than 40% revenue growth this quarter. Against the backdrop of those nine straight quarters of 50%-plus revenue growth, a sub-40% revenue growth estimate this quarter seems very beatable.To be sure, part of this slowdown is because management guided for it in the last earnings report. But, management has a history of under-promising and over-delivering. That seems especially true this time around, with revenue growth estimates slated at multi-quarter lows.As such, it seems highly likely that -- at the very least -- Okta tops revenue estimates in its Q2 print. Peer Results Have Been StrongThe third reason to buy OKTA stock ahead of Wednesday's earnings is that peer cloud companies have reported strong numbers over the past month, in sum supporting that the secular enterprise cloud transition remains as vigorous as ever.Specifically, over the past month, cloud companies Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK), ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), and Twilio (NASDAQ:TWLO) all reported double-beat-and-raise earnings reports. At the same time, hybrid cloud companies Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) and Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) both reported double-beats in the past month, and both cited cloud strength in their earnings report.Also of note, cloud infrastructure giants Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) both reported double-beat quarters recently, with cloud strength at the epicenter of both beats.Net net, the takeaway is that the secular enterprise cloud transition remains as vigorous as ever, despite slowing economic growth around the world. Okta makes its living off this transition. As such, so long as it remains vigorous, Okta's numbers should remain favorable. Secular Growth Narrative is RobustThe fourth big reason to buy OKTA stock ahead of earnings is that the secular growth narrative here is so good that any post-earnings sell-off will likely be nothing more than a buying opportunity.Okta has created an innovative solution at the convergence of the cloud and cybersecurity worlds. Specifically, the company has developed what management calls the Identity Cloud, which is an identity-based cloud security solution which enables customers and employees alike to securely log into multiple applications using just one log-in. This solution is high adaptive, highly secure, and very convenient for enterprises -- which are sometimes adopting several new software systems every month. * 10 Undervalued Stocks With Breakout Potential Because of these advantages, Okta's Identity Cloud solution has gained significant traction in the cloud security world over the past several years. It will continue to gain traction over the next several years, too. At the same time, the whole cloud security solution market will expand dramatically, driven by more enterprise workloads migrating to the cloud and enterprises spending more money to protect and secure those workloads.As such, Okta projects as a market share gainer in a secular growth industry for the next several. That implies big revenue growth for a lot longer. Gross margins are north of 70%. Opex rates will fall with scale. Over the next few years, Okta projects as a big time profit grower -- and all that profit growth should propel OTKA stock meaningfully higher. Bottom Line on OKTA StockOkta should report strong second quarter numbers after the bell on Wednesday. Those better-than-expected numbers should be good enough to spark a nice post-earnings rally in OKTA stock.But, even if that doesn't happen, any post-earnings sell-off in OKTA stock will most likely just be a buying opportunity, since the secular growth narrative here implies that OTKA stock is a long-term winner.As of this writing, Luke Lango was long OKTA, SPLK, and GOOG. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 7 "Boring" Stocks With Exciting Prospects * 15 Cybersecurity Stocks to Watch as the Industry Heats Up * 5 Healthcare Stocks to Buy for Healthy Dividends The post 4 Reasons to Like Okta Stock Ahead Of Tomorrow's Earnings Report appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Investors studying IPO bases are partly blinded because new issues don't have enough trading history to generate tools like the Relative Price Strength Rating or the Accumulation/Distribution Rating, as compiled in IBD's proprietary research tool, Stock Checkup. There are ways to evaluate these blind spots, however. Important factors include seeing a shallow correction within the base during normal market conditions, a large increase in price and a close near session highs on the breakout day, and heavy volume on the breakout day and week. ServiceNow, the business software company, went public June 29, 2012, at 18 a share, and met with immediate success as the stock leaped to a close at 24.60 as nearly 11 million shares exchanged hands.

ServiceNow’s “The Employee Experience Imperative” Report, which studies the service experience at work, reveals that employee enthusiasm for work peaks at the start of a new job, but wanes by 22% shortly thereafter. Where are employers missing the mark?

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock has dropped recently as the stock market has tumbled on interest rate and trade-war concerns. MSFT stock, like the the S&P 500, presently trades about 4% off of its all time highs.Source: Shutterstock The reality of Microsoft stock is that, if the market keeps dropping on trade and interest-rate concerns, so will MSFT stock.MSFT is not immune to these market headwinds. The company's double-digit-percentage revenue growth rate is somewhat reliant upon healthy macro economic conditions, and those conditions are deteriorating because of rising geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainty.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips * 10 Cyclical Stocks to Buy (or Sell) Now Meanwhile, MSFT stock is also somewhat reliant upon rates staying lower for longer in order to support its rich valuation, and investors are unsure as to whether or not rates will stay lower for longer.Thus, if the market keeps dropping on interest rate and trade concerns, MSFT stock will keep dropping, too, no matter what Microsoft news is reported.But it will drop a lot less than other tech and growth stocks because. relative to other tech and growth stocks, Microsoft stock is significantly less exposed to interest-rate and trade headwinds. That's because the valuation of MSFT stock isn't that rich, nor is its business that dependent on favorable economic conditions.Consequently, for investors who are looking for safety amid the recent market turmoil but also want growth, MSFT seems like the perfect stock to buy. Microsoft Stock Isn't Immune, But It's Partially ShieldedMicrosoft stock is not immune to interest rate and trade headwinds. But it is partially shielded, and this partial protection makes MSFT stock an attractive, "safe tech stock" to buy in turbulent times.On the trade front, MSFT is partially shielded from trade headwinds because its core business is supported by non-cyclical adoption tailwinds.Specifically, Microsoft's business is all about the cloud today. The company is capitalizing on the non-cyclical pivot from on-premise solutions to cloud solutions.This pivot may slow somewhat as global economic conditions deteriorate and as enterprises pull back on IT spending and investment.But the pivot won't stop. Instead, enterprises will continue to shift to the cloud.The pace of the transition could even increase if the economy slows because cloud solutions provide significant cost savings relative to on-premise solutions.As a result, Microsoft's business won't materially slow as a result of escalating trade headwinds. Instead, its business should remain largely steady and stable.On the interest rate front, MSFT stock is partially shielded because its valuation isn't that rich relative to other tech/growth stocks. MSFT stock trades at 25 times analysts' average forward earnings estimate.That's rich. But it's not that rich. Other big cloud stocks - like Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), ServiceNow (NASDAQ:NOW), and Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) - all trade at over 35 times analysts' average forward earnings estimate.Thus, if rates do creep higher, Microsoft stock won't be pressured as much as other big-name tech stocks.For these two reasons, MSFT stock is a relatively good buy in turbulent times. Indeed, this scenario is already playing out. MSFT stock is presently only 5% off its recent highs. By contrast, every FANG stock is in correction territory. This relative outperformance of MSFT stock will persist. The Long-Term Outlook of MSFT Stock Remains CompellingThe long-term bull thesis on Microsoft stock remains compelling, even amid recent market headwinds.As stated earlier, Microsoft's core cloud businesses are supported by non-cyclical cloud adoption tailwinds. These tailwinds may slow somewhat in the face of global economic uncertainty. Or they may accelerate, as enterprises look to cut costs as times get tough. But these tailwinds won't die. Only 20% of enterprise workloads are in the cloud today. Over time, that number will rise towards 100%. Thus, MSFT can easily sustain double-digit-percentage revenue growth for the next several years.MSFT's gross margins will continue to rise as its cloud businesses, particularly Azure, grow. Double-digit-percentage revenue growth should also be enough to increase its profitability. Share buybacks will also be in play.That combination should produce roughly 15% EPS growth. Reasonably speaking, then, Microsoft's EPS could reach $12 by fiscal 2026. Based on a forward PE multiple of 20, which is average for growth stocks, that equates to a fiscal 2025 price target of $240. Discounted back by 10% per year, we arrive at a fiscal 2020 price target of roughly $150.Thus,MSFT stock can rise meaningfully both over the next 12 months and the next five years. The Bottom Line on MSFT StockThings are getting choppy in the stock market right now, and as they do get choppy, tech and growth stocks will get hit extra hard because they have ample exposure to trade and interest-rate headwinds.But, relative to that tech and growth group, Microsoft stock will outperform in turbulent times because it has less-than-average exposure to the aforementioned headwinds. As a result, for investors looking to stick with growth but also seeking some stability amid the recent volatility, MSFT stock looks like a good choice.As of this writing, Luke Lango was long MSFT and ADBE. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 10 Cyclical Stocks to Buy (or Sell) Now * 7 Biotech ETFs That Should Remain Healthy * 7 of the Hottest AI Stocks to Buy Now The post Why Microsoft Stock Is a Relatively Safe Tech Stock to Buy appeared first on InvestorPlace.